


A Marriage of White and Red

by Morbane



Category: Schneeweisschen und Rosenrot | Snow-white and Rose-red (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Constructive Criticism Welcome, F/F, Happy Ending, Multi, Pining, Polyamory, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 21:30:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3911362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/pseuds/Morbane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem with a happy ending is that it's still an <i>ending</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Marriage of White and Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamiflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamiflame/gifts).



When the bear came out of the trees, Rose-red took her sister's hand and ran. She wasn't afraid of the bear, and she expected that her sister felt the same way. Nothing in the forest had ever harmed them, though they were prudent and did their best to avoid hungry or maddened beasts.

No; they ran because the bear was about to kill the dwarf, and this time they could not save him. Rose-red did not want to watch, or want her sister to see.

But when he called after them, then she was afraid.

Snow-white turned first, understanding first. "It is our winter friend," she said.

Both of them marvelled as the bear they had known cast his fur aside like a cloak, and stood in front of them as a man, the setting sun setting his shining garments alight, as if he had walked straight from the sun to them.

With his black hair tangled in uneven lengths, and the loam and leaves of the forest clinging to him, he was still the most handsome man Rose-red had ever seen.

You are staring, Rose-red told herself, and she glanced at her sister instead. 

If Rose-red had forgotten herself for a moment, Snow-white seemed to have lost herself entirely. Joy and wonder blazed in her eyes. Her smile took Rose-red's breath away.

Oh my sister, Rose-red thought, that is how you look when you are in love, and I should know.

If the bear was a fallen sun, Snow-white had always been her sister's star.

* * *

They exchanged brief words, standing at the edge of the heath: "I am a king's son," their friend declared, returning Snow-white's smile, "Ulris by name. That dwarf stole treasures from my royal house, and I vowed to recover them. I came to this forest as a man, but the dwarf gave me the shape of a bear."

"Prince Ulris," Rose-red said, "why did you not tell us all your story when you came to us, since you had the power of speech?"

"When I came to your cottage, I barely had that," he answered. "That was the dwarf's design, I think: by entrapping me in the shape of an animal, to regress my mind as well, until I knew myself only as a savage beast, and forgot that I had a soul. When I came to you, I did not know myself. Your grace and gentleness reminded me."

Rose-red recalled their hearthside evenings differently. She had been playful, not gentle. But Prince Ulris was gazing at Snow-white again, and Rose-red must own that what he had said was true of her sister.

"I am glad," Snow-white said simply.

Prince Ulris said, "I must bury the dwarf, and that I can do alone. But, then, may I come to you?"

"Yes," Snow-white said, "yes, please do." 

He gave them the bear-skin to carry back with them to the cottage. It was a great bundle, but lighter than Rose-red had expected. The inner hide was not like any animal skin she had ever touched, but thin, dry, like leaves or paper, smooth to the touch. The fur did not smell like a bear. It smelled faintly like a man - like the blacksmith when he had been working, when Rose-red had gone to him to buy nails to mend the cottage, or like the innkeeper, to whom she brought deadfall for his fire. It was not a bad smell, and it was better than either of those.

She let Snow-white tell the whole story to their mother as she put away the thread and other things they had bought in the market that day. As she finished, Prince Ulris knocked on the door, carrying the dwarf's sack of precious stones, and the whole tale was told again.

A difficulty presented itself when it came time for the household to sleep.

"I cannot ask a prince to sleep on the floor," their mother said in dismay. 

"I was grateful for that bed before, and will be grateful for it now," Prince Ulris said, but their mother would have none of it, saying that it would be a very different matter now that he had soft skin rather than dense fur.

"Never fear, mother," Rose-red said at last. "The prince may have our bed, and my sister and I shall sleep at the hearth: we will sleep on the fur." 

So it was arranged. Snow-white and Rose-red curled up to sleep together, and pulled the edges of the great fur over them.

Rose-red slept deeply, although, having fallen asleep wrapped in fur, she dreamed that she lay all night in the bear’s arms.

When she woke, she saw that her sister's eyes were open too. They helped each other dress and went out to draw water. Snow-white was quiet and serious.

"Something is troubling you," Rose-red said, "what is it?"

"I don't know whether to be happy or sad," Snow-white said. "I am happy for our bear, of course - the prince. But I wish we could have had another winter like the last. It is a happy ending..." but her voice trailed off, and she looked sad.

"A happy ending," said Rose-red, "but not to our story - for our story has not ended."

Snow-white smiled at that, and kissed Rose-red once, quickly, before they went in.

* * *

After they had breakfasted, Prince Ulris said that he must go into the forest and search for the dwarf's other stores of treasures. "I will return by nightfall," he promised them.

Before the morning was well advanced, all of the chores that must be done inside were done, and Rose-red was restless to go out. She left her mother and her sister sewing, and went to pick apples from a grove deep in the wood.

She had picked enough to fill a table cloth, and was knotting up its ends to carry it home, when Prince Ulris came into the clearing, and greeted her. He carried a sack of his own. "Well-met," he said. "Will you walk with me?"

She said she would, and they started toward the cottage. "Did you find the treasure you were seeking?" Rose-red asked him.

"The second of the three," Prince Ulris answered, and opened his sack to show her gleaming pearls. "Now only the gold the dwarf stole remains hidden."

"When you have that, I suppose, you will return to your kingdom," Rose-red said.

Prince Ulris looked thoughtfully ahead, and did not answer at once. At last, he said, "I swore that I would hunt my enemy to his home, and win back from him his greatest treasures. But I find that gold and gems are no longer so high in my estimation; that which I would value most highly here never belonged to him."

Was this how princes were taught to talk? It was a riddle Rose-red could not untangle. "Who does it belong to, then?" she asked plainly.

"A woman belongs to herself," the prince said. His smile was wry, but there was sincerity in his eyes when he looked at her.

He is asking my blessing, Rose-red thought, and, recalling the look in her sister's eyes the previous day - her sister's words this morning - her sister's melancholy that spring - she must give it.

But - "A prince marry a forest girl?" she asked. "I do not think that is the usual way of things."

Prince Ulris said, "That may be; yet, if I asked your sister if there is any in the town, or any traveller she has seen, who is lovelier than you, do you think she would answer me no?"

That was strange - was the prince courting her, or Snow-white? "She would deny it," Rose-red admitted.

"And if I asked you the same?" he pressed.

"Snow-white is the fairest woman in all the miles around," said Rose-red boldly; it was not a prudent answer, but it was the answer of her heart.

"More miles than you may imagine," the prince confirmed.

There was a pause, and Rose-red rallied. "My sister would have you, and gladly," she said.

The prince said, "And for yourself?"

For myself, I would have her too, Rose-red thought bitterly; but I am not so foolish as to hope for that.

"I would not leave her side," she answered, "and it please you, lord prince."

"What would please me..." he echoed, and shook his head as if to clear it of a strange fancy. "I am a king's son, as I have told you," he told her again. "But I am not my father's heir. I have an older brother, and he has no bride. If you offer me your sister, shall I do no less?"

"I would be a queen?" Rose-red asked, amazed.

"And it please you," Ulris murmured in answer.

* * *

When they came to the cottage together, the autumn sun was still high in the sky. Prince Ulris untied his sack again to show their mother the pearls, and Rose-red went to her sister and whispered in her ear, "Come out with me."

Snow-white gave her a sharp look, but she put down her sewing and came.

Rose-red laced her fingers through her sister's fingers and did not say anything. She led her sister through the trees, going a way that was not marked by any path, because she did not want to be followed. At last, they reached a familiar fallen tree that lay in a meadow of flowers. Rose-red flung herself down, rolled over, and reached up to pull her sister down to join her. "Kiss me," she urged, and Snow-white knelt in the poppies and bluebells and kissed her slowly and sweetly and completely, until that was all there was in the world: Rose-red and Snow-white and the flowers, and the clouds sailing past in the sky over Snow-white's shoulder.

When Snow-white and Rose-red had been fifteen, and their mother had begun to send them to the town without her instead of taking one daughter and leaving the other to mind the home, Rose-red had been fascinated by the way the young people in the town flirted and dallied. She was not - quite - ready to try her luck with their games, so she had asked Snow-white to kiss her, that she might learn with someone who would not mock her clumsiness.

Kissing, she decided then, was the most wonderful thing in the world. And yet, when she gathered enough courage to kiss first a boy, then a girl, then another boy of the town, it was nothing as good; so she let it be, and listened to her mother who said such things could wait until she was older.

Snow-white, who was fonder of her own company than Rose-red was, did not make any similar overtures to their age-mates in the town. So Rose-red could not ask her sister about her own experiences, to compare. She would have been reluctant to. Their practice kisses, though offered and received in fun, somehow put such things beyond ordinary gossip, into another mode.

Then, a year later, Snow-white offered to kiss her again, and all of Rose-red's mind and heart and body said yes.

Rose-red knew by then that other sisters and brothers did not want each other this way. But it did not seem to matter. Their life in the forest was happy, and sufficient; if she and Snow-white married and moved away, who would look after their mother when she grew old? 

But because she could not marry her sister - because she watched as the youths in the town married each other, pair by pair, while the seasons turned - she had thought: I am happy, no one could be happier, but it is for now. Only for now.

Now she lay among the flowers and kissed Snow-white, and stroked her soft cheeks and smooth back. Now she tangled her hands in her sister's hair, and moved her fingers across her sister's scalp in gentle, lightly-pressed circles while Snow-white sighed and relaxed. Now she let Snow-white draw her tunic off, and her own, and wrapped her arms around her sister, fitting breast to breast in the same way that they lip fit to lip.

This is the last time, Rose-red thought, prolonging the moment, the last such moments she would ever have like this. "I love you," she said at last.

"I love you too," Snow-white said, and they dozed for a little while in each other's arms until an early autumn breeze came up to scud leaves across the clearing.

"Why now?" Snow-white asked her, as they dressed again. "I thought you’d want to wait until Prince Ulris was gone." 

" _He_ is why," Rose-red answered. "Snow-white - it's good, it's wonderful news, but - he's going to ask you to marry him. To go home with him."

Snow-white's hand jerked in Rose-red's hand. 

"I'm happy for you," Rose-red said quickly. "I saw you. You love him, or you could."

"I never expected..."

"He said you were more precious to him than the treasure he came here for," Rose-red finished.

Snow-white laughed. "What, will he leave his pearls and gems with you and Mother, and take me instead?"

"No," Rose-red admitted, "I am to come too, and marry his brother, and be queen to protect you."

"How tidy it all is," Snow-white mused.

"Aren't you happy?" Rose-red asked.

"Yes," Snow-white said gently, "or I could be. But, Rose-red, what do you think of our prince? Truly."

Rose-red thought of the bear whose fur she had tugged all winter, who had laughed and growled alike at her games, but had never done more than growl.

"I think he is worthy to have you," she said bravely. "And I love you, so I do not say that lightly."

Snow-white squeezed her hand, and they went in to the cottage together, and spent another night wrapped in each other's arms, with the bearskin wrapped around both of them.

I was wrong, thought Rose-red; it is a happy ending, and it is for us; but that which is ending has surely been a greater happiness than any that may come.

The next morning Prince Ulris went out to seek gold, the last treasure stolen by the dwarf. "Surely he will ask for your hand when he comes back," Rose-red said to Snow-white.

"Perhaps," Snow-white said. "Then you must stay near me, sister, and keep close by when he asks to talk to me."

So they spent the day in tasks outside the cottage, but near to it: weeding the garden and mending the lip of the well, and washing their clothes in the stream.

In the afternoon, Prince Ulris returned, and in the distance Rose-red saw that he carried a third sack.

"Hide by the wood-pile, and hear what we say," Snow-white urged her, and Rose-red pretended to go around the house to go in, but she did not.

"Prince Ulris," Snow-white greeted him. "What have you found?" she asked.

"My inheritance of gold," he answered her, and loosed the neck of the sack to show her fine pieces of worked gold: brooches and statuettes, goblets and coins.

“Then you have completed your quest,” Snow-white said. “I am glad for you.”

“Are you sorry, too?” Prince Ulris asked. “For I am.”

“Yes,” Snow-white said. “I will miss you: I missed you all summer long, and this time I do not think you will return.”

“Then come with me,” said the prince, “you and your sister both; you will be fine ladies, queens and princesses, and you will be my bride, if you wish it.”

“Are you free to marry whom you like, then?” Snow-white asked.

“I am.”

“Then marry both of us,” Snow-white said, and Rose-red could scarce believe her ears. “What I have is my sister’s, and what she has is mine. But I love you, and I will gladly be your bride, if I am not your bride alone.”

Rose-red wished that she could see their faces. She had not dreamed her sister would say anything like this. She had no more dreamed of being Prince Ulris’s bride than of being a queen.

But that was not true, because she had dreamed of the bear’s embrace.

“Would your sister have me?” asked Prince Ulris, and his voice was strange.

“Quite,” said Snow-white. “Rose-red, what do you say?” and Rose-red had to scramble out of the wood-pile to stand before them, feeling hot and foolish and… several other things.

“I thought you wanted my sister,” she said.

“Never mind what you _thought_ ,” Snow-white said sharply, the sharpness that Rose-red only ever heard from her gentle sister when she had been patient for a very long time. “I want to know what you _want_.”

“You, of course,” Rose-red said, afraid to say it aloud but more afraid not to. “And - yes, I too would be sorry to lose our bear.”

Snow-white gave her a look as if to say that she had expected more, but this would do for now. Then they both turned to look at Prince Ulris.

“It is no choice at all,” he said, “and I - I am merely glad I do not need to choose.” And he held out his hands to both of them.

Snow-white took the hand he offered, and Rose-red’s, and then tugged them both, abrupt and playful, into each other’s arms. “I said I would never leave you,” she told Rose-red.

“As long as we live,” Rose-red answered her. “And now the same holds true for you, my lord,” she added, her heart beginning to lift, and raised her head to kiss their prince.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear dreamiflame, I agree that this arrangement is much more satisfactory than involving a random brother prince. I hope you enjoyed the story, as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Thanks very much to RobberBaroness and kurushi for giving me their thoughts on this story at short notice.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Pure as a Rose](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3974560) by [WilheminaChagal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WilheminaChagal/pseuds/WilheminaChagal)




End file.
